Working in IT 3.0: xp_cmdshell

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Working in IT 3.0: xp_cmdshell

mewse: May 2, 2006

Super Slash posted:

So uh... when it comes to doing a handover/knowledge transfer of your whole SMB environment what's the best way to go about it? Or at least what are the most important subjects to cover within a day?

My last day is this Friday and there's a guy coming in to replace me who I don't know their name nor their experience level. I do have a Confluence knowledgebase with lots of articles for the IT side of the business in addition to a KeePass database and different service providers, fortunately there's also going to be one of our MSP engineers here as well.

Although I do hate the place I at least want to give the best send off I can so my successor isn't just twisting in the wind.

Just braindump the most critical stuff, show him where your documentation is, and then laugh your rear end off when you hear about him quitting a week after you "trained" him (may have happened to me after my last job)

# ? Aug 23, 2017 19:09

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 11, 2024 23:36

Zorak of Michigan: Jun 10, 2006

Sickening posted:

I didn't exactly care about free, just before I buy something again I wanted opinions for options. I have used visio for years for no other reason than that is what was available to me.

Do any of the alternatives to visio have any way to generate shapes programatically? I desperately want something I can integrate with an MS SQL DB and say "run this query, create a square for every row returned, and label it with field 1 space field 2 newline field 3 x field 4".

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:15

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

Isn't that UML?

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:41

Thom and the Heads: Oct 27, 2010; Farscape is actually pretty cool.

It's looking like I'm going to :yotj:

before the end of the week. new company is trying to get me to give a 1 week or 1.5 week notice. I'd like to not burn any bridges so what does the thread think about giving < 2 weeks notice. seems like bad form but this is my second salaried job

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:42

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

If they want you then I don't see why they can't wait an extra week / half a week. Depends how you feel about your current place, I'd always want to give my notice period though.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:44

Kashuno: Oct 9, 2012; Where the hell is my SWORD?; Grimey Drawer

Thanks Ants posted:

If they want you then I don't see why they can't wait an extra week / half a week. Depends how you feel about your current place, I'd always want to give my notice period though.

this is the correct statement

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:46

Dr. Arbitrary: Mar 15, 2006; Bleak Gremlin

Zorak of Michigan posted:

Do any of the alternatives to visio have any way to generate shapes programatically? I desperately want something I can integrate with an MS SQL DB and say "run this query, create a square for every row returned, and label it with field 1 space field 2 newline field 3 x field 4".

Don't know about alternatives, but I've been able to draw some simple diagrams with Powershell. I have a standard form at work for new servers, and using it I can automatically create Visio diagrams.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:47

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

Kashuno posted:

this is the correct statement

I'd also add that it's not a good sign that your new company is asking this.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:48

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

Internet Explorer posted:

I'd also add that it's not a good sign that your new company is asking this.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:49

Proteus Jones: Feb 28, 2013

Dick Trauma posted:

On the Mac side I like OmniGraffle.

This times infinity. With the pro option you can export Visio format as well.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:54

Thom and the Heads: Oct 27, 2010; Farscape is actually pretty cool.

Internet Explorer posted:

I'd also add that it's not a good sign that your new company is asking this.

It's odd. The CEO reached out to me about a month ago regarding the position and things were fairly slow moving until this week. I'm wondering if someone left recently and they've been getting slammed with support calls. I certainly don't hate where I work now so I'd like to be as courteous as possible when exiting as I am not sure that they see this coming. I think I'll stick to two weeks - what's really the difference between starting on a Thursday and starting on the following Monday?

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:57

GnarlyCharlie4u: Sep 23, 2007; I have an unhealthy obsession with motorcycles.

Proof

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

oh man...

so the most senior member of our team (besides CIO) walked in today, said 'Goodbye' and walked out. ?
OH MAN I just realized that today was his 5 year anniversary. He's now vested for his pension. Yeah, he totally quit.

Okay so this isn't as great as I thought. He was actually put on leave right in the middle of several critical projects. All of his work is being reassigned, nobody knows what the gently caress is going on with half this poo poo and we are probably gonna have to start over on most of it.
Apparently the whole thing was because he went to the doctor to get bloodwork done, the boss didn't see his out of office notification, and when we had an outage he was unreachable. There were like 4 other people in the office and he wasn't even on call. He came in, manager grabbed him and said "you can't be here" and he left with a really confused face. What in the actual gently caress?

# ? Aug 23, 2017 20:57

Kashuno: Oct 9, 2012; Where the hell is my SWORD?; Grimey Drawer

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

Okay so this isn't as great as I thought. He was actually put on leave right in the middle of several critical projects. All of his work is being reassigned, nobody knows what the gently caress is going on with half this poo poo and we are probably gonna have to start over on most of it.
Apparently the whole thing was because he went to the doctor to get bloodwork done, the boss didn't see his out of office notification, and when we had an outage he was unreachable. There were like 4 other people in the office and he wasn't even on call. He came in, manager grabbed him and said "you can't be here" and he left with a really confused face. What in the actual gently caress?

Hahaha holy poo poo :rip:

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:02

ChubbyThePhat: Dec 22, 2006; Who nico nico needs anyone else

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

Okay so this isn't as great as I thought. He was actually put on leave right in the middle of several critical projects. All of his work is being reassigned, nobody knows what the gently caress is going on with half this poo poo and we are probably gonna have to start over on most of it.
Apparently the whole thing was because he went to the doctor to get bloodwork done, the boss didn't see his out of office notification, and when we had an outage he was unreachable. There were like 4 other people in the office and he wasn't even on call. He came in, manager grabbed him and said "you can't be here" and he left with a really confused face. What in the actual gently caress?

What the hell even is this

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:04

GnarlyCharlie4u: Sep 23, 2007; I have an unhealthy obsession with motorcycles.

Proof

ChubbyThePhat posted:

What the hell even is this

I've been asking myself that all day.
It appears like they're gonna fire the most senior member of our team for taking sick leave to go to the doctor.

If that doesn't scream "wrongful termination suit" then I have no loving clue what would.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:10

GreenNight: Feb 19, 2006; Turning the light on the darkest places, you and I know we got to face this now. We got to face this now.

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

I've been asking myself that all day.
It appears like they're gonna fire the most senior member of our team for taking sick leave to go to the doctor.

If that doesn't scream "wrongful termination suit" then I have no loving clue what would.

They'll spin it as he was late a few times.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:11

ChubbyThePhat: Dec 22, 2006; Who nico nico needs anyone else

If that is actually what's going down, it sounds like the ship is sinking.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:17

H110Hawk: Dec 28, 2006

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

I've been asking myself that all day.
It appears like they're gonna fire the most senior member of our team for taking sick leave to go to the doctor.

If that doesn't scream "wrongful termination suit" then I have no loving clue what would.

"Whoops he's going to hit his pension" termination. It won't be wrongful unless he's in a special state, union, or contract. That pension has me hopeful it's the latter.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:24

GnarlyCharlie4u: Sep 23, 2007; I have an unhealthy obsession with motorcycles.

Proof

ChubbyThePhat posted:

If that is actually what's going down, it sounds like the ship is sinking.

Nah that's definitely not the case.
However I wouldn't be surprised if they're just using the absence as an excuse to get rid of him. He regularly questions the terrible decisions of our management, openly disagrees when bad knee jerk reactions to problems are made, and generally refuses to take the blame for the issues caused by management. So naturally, he never got along well with the management.

H110Hawk posted:

"Whoops he's going to hit his pension" termination. It won't be wrongful unless he's in a special state, union, or contract. That pension has me hopeful it's the latter.

Nah, he already GOT it. Plus he's not even fired yet, he's still on leave. I'm flabbergasted honestly.

Sickening posted:

Sounds like a micromanager that has and employee who refuses to be micromanaged.

VVV bingo. But why now after 5 loving years?

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:26

Sickening: Jul 16, 2007; Black summer was the best summer.

ChubbyThePhat posted:

If that is actually what's going down, it sounds like the ship is sinking.

Sounds like a micromanager that has and employee who refuses to be micromanaged.

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

Nah that's definitely not the case.
However I wouldn't be surprised if they're just using the absence as an excuse to get rid of him. He regularly questions the terrible decisions of our management, openly disagrees when bad knee jerk reactions to problems are made, and generally refuses to take the blame for the issues caused by management. So naturally, he never got along well with the management.

Yep. I mean doing these things all require a bit of finesse though. He probably knew the risks.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:27

H110Hawk: Dec 28, 2006

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

Nah, he already GOT it. Plus he's not even fired yet, he's still on leave. I'm flabbergasted honestly.

Do days on administrative leave count towards pension vesting?

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:38

ChubbyThePhat: Dec 22, 2006; Who nico nico needs anyone else

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

Nah that's definitely not the case.
However I wouldn't be surprised if they're just using the absence as an excuse to get rid of him. He regularly questions the terrible decisions of our management, openly disagrees when bad knee jerk reactions to problems are made, and generally refuses to take the blame for the issues caused by management. So naturally, he never got along well with the management.

This sounds like an actually good manager.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:45

Thanks Ants: May 21, 2004; #essereFerrari

Yeah I was going to say. My manager agrees on every subject with his manager, and is worthless.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 21:49

GnarlyCharlie4u: Sep 23, 2007; I have an unhealthy obsession with motorcycles.

Proof

H110Hawk posted:

Do days on administrative leave count towards pension vesting?

Not sure, but he's already vested as of today anyway and vacation time counts which I'm sure he still has.

ChubbyThePhat posted:

This sounds like an actually good manager.

I think he would have made an actually good manager.

# ? Aug 23, 2017 22:02

Japanese Dating Sim: Nov 12, 2003; hehe; Lipstick Apathy

So I splurged and bought myself a 1TB SSD for my home PC, ostensibly (and honestly) with the intended purpose of serving as the storage for my VMs. In reality I only need like 150-200GB max for that. The rest will be Steam games, probably.

I enabled Hyper-V on my PC and I have two VMs, Server 2016 and W10. Got them talking to each other (took longer than I'd like: first I had to figure out the right network adapter, get their IPs/masks configured, and then an exception on the firewall for ICMP Echos) and now I'm about to promote the 2016 VM to be a DC.

I really, really should've done this stuff a long time ago. Even in the basic setup stuff I feel like I'm learning a lot.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 02:09

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Internet Explorer posted:

I'd also add that it's not a good sign that your new company is asking this.

If you haven't given notice yet, this is an opportunity for a signing bonus. "Leaving my current position on less than two weeks notice would come at a cost to my professional reputation, so I consider it only fair that I be compensated in some way."

# ? Aug 24, 2017 02:36

MC Fruit Stripe: Nov 26, 2002; around and around we go

Japanese Dating Sim posted:

I really, really should've done this stuff a long time ago. Even in the basic setup stuff I feel like I'm learning a lot.

Oh god yes. I learn more in my lab than I do at work. That's not diminishing my job at all, but the job is about maintaining those five nines and working on whichever project we sold to whoever is throwing money at us this month. At home, it's "you know, I'm hearing the word Jenkins a lot lately, let's grab a copy, install it, and see what trouble we can get into."

# ? Aug 24, 2017 05:07

Spring Heeled Jack: Feb 25, 2007; If you can read this you can read

For those of you stuck managing iSeries devices, does anyone use a hosted provider? We have one in-house that we're looking to either move off-site o just switch to a vendor who will host it for us. It's critical for our day-to-day operations at the moment so it has to be included in our soon-to-be-revamped DR setup,

# ? Aug 24, 2017 14:12

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

I've never used a hosting provider but given how unique the whole platform happens to be there's a big benefit to simply outsourcing the whole thing.

DR depending how far you want to go can be simple as an Option 21 Backup to tape or virtual tape which any decent System Admin can at the least perform backups. For a restore you'd probably want help from a Vendor or IBM.

Power HA is also an option but obviously needs care and isn't cheap.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 14:44

Spring Heeled Jack: Feb 25, 2007; If you can read this you can read

Tab8715 posted:

I've never used a hosting provider but given how unique the whole platform happens to be there's a big benefit to simply outsourcing the whole thing.

DR depending how far you want to go can be simple as an Option 21 Backup to tape or virtual tape which any decent System Admin can at the least perform backups. For a restore you'd probably want help from a Vendor or IBM.

Power HA is also an option but obviously needs care and isn't cheap.

I agree, we have the benefit of having 2 programmers for it in--house but as our use of it continues to dwindle we really don't want to have to deal with the whole hardware/software upgrade dance. Our current DR strategy is simply that, restoring a 21 backup at a colo we rent from an MSP. However as we look to move our prod infrastructure to AWS or something we don't want to be stuck with the iSeries on-prem.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 15:11

Thom and the Heads: Oct 27, 2010; Farscape is actually pretty cool.

Thom and the Heads posted:

It's odd. The CEO reached out to me about a month ago regarding the position and things were fairly slow moving until this week. I'm wondering if someone left recently and they've been getting slammed with support calls. I certainly don't hate where I work now so I'd like to be as courteous as possible when exiting as I am not sure that they see this coming. I think I'll stick to two weeks - what's really the difference between starting on a Thursday and starting on the following Monday?

So I told the CEO that, out of respect for my current employer, I'd like to stick to two weeks notice (I set the expectation that I'd need at least two weeks at least three times during our previous conversations). In the same email where he asked me to give a week notice, he said I'd have an offer yesterday. Radio silence. No offer, no followup email. :iiam:

# ? Aug 24, 2017 15:26

Kashuno: Oct 9, 2012; Where the hell is my SWORD?; Grimey Drawer

Thom and the Heads posted:

So I told the CEO that, out of respect for my current employer, I'd like to stick to two weeks notice (I set the expectation that I'd need at least two weeks at least three times during our previous conversations). In the same email where he asked me to give a week notice, he said I'd have an offer yesterday. Radio silence. No offer, no followup email.

If they don't respond because you want to give a 2 week notice, they're really lovely and you dodged a bullet

# ? Aug 24, 2017 15:28

Sickening: Jul 16, 2007; Black summer was the best summer.

Thom and the Heads posted:

So I told the CEO that, out of respect for my current employer, I'd like to stick to two weeks notice (I set the expectation that I'd need at least two weeks at least three times during our previous conversations). In the same email where he asked me to give a week notice, he said I'd have an offer yesterday. Radio silence. No offer, no followup email.

NO offense, but if the CEO is calling you for a support job the company is dogshit.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 15:32

psydude: Apr 1, 2008

Anyone purchased independent ST/LT disability insurance? If so, who's a good provider? The startup that hired me has a group health insurance plan, but they don't have disability insurance yet.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 15:37

Sefal: Nov 8, 2011; Fun Shoe

FWIW. My predecessor got fired on the spot and they wanted someone ASAP. They still respected my 1 month notice period.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 15:49

Aunt Beth: Feb 24, 2006; Baby, you're ready!; Grimey Drawer

Spring Heeled Jack posted:

For those of you stuck managing iSeries devices, does anyone use a hosted provider? We have one in-house that we're looking to either move off-site o just switch to a vendor who will host it for us. It's critical for our day-to-day operations at the moment so it has to be included in our soon-to-be-revamped DR setup,

Take a look at Blue Hill. We are moving our mainframe there and they have been excellent so far. They also do 400 work.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 16:23

devmd01: Mar 7, 2006; Elektronik
Supersonik

MC Fruit Stripe posted:

Oh god yes. I learn more in my lab than I do at work. That's not diminishing my job at all, but the job is about maintaining those five nines and working on whichever project we sold to whoever is throwing money at us this month. At home, it's "you know, I'm hearing the word Jenkins a lot lately, let's grab a copy, install it, and see what trouble we can get into."

My challenge right now is two-fold on working to expand my skills for the future. I could easily grab an unused DL580 G7, take it home, and go hog wild, but:

- with three kids 3 and under, there just isn't any goddamn time to do any lab stuff at home unless I take away from what little leisure activity time I have

- after working on systems all day, the last thing I want to do is come home and deal with more computer poo poo. I used to have a couple of VM hosts for messing around, keeping a separate Sabnzbd VM, etc, but got rid of them because you don't mess with Production, aka keep the wife acceptance factor high.

I'm not terribly concerned right now, if I truly need to learn something I can carve out work time to do a pluralsight course, POC something with old hardware, etc. Down the road I'll definitely need to do more learning on my own, but for now, it's going to have to be learn as things are thrown at me.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 16:36

MC Fruit Stripe: Nov 26, 2002; around and around we go

Do not take a DL580 into your home, please I beg you.

Just slap an extra DIMM of memory into whichever PC you've got kicking around. Lab VMs are very lightweight - even an extra 8gb of memory could get you 6 running VMs at a time since you're just one person doing one task at a time - give the domain controller like 800mb of memory, an app server 1.3gb, etc. Not building it out like production. You can fit so many VMs on a standard desktop PC. Also remember that not every VM needs to be running at a time. If you're practicing your SQL queries, maybe your Chef server doesn't need to be up, for example.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 16:43

Japanese Dating Sim: Nov 12, 2003; hehe; Lipstick Apathy

MC Fruit Stripe posted:

Do not take a DL580 into your home, please I beg you.

Just slap an extra DIMM of memory into whichever PC you've got kicking around. Lab VMs are very lightweight - even an extra 8gb of memory could get you 6 running VMs at a time since you're just one person doing one task at a time - give the domain controller like 800mb of memory, an app server 1.3gb, etc. Not building it out like production. You can fit so many VMs on a standard desktop PC. Also remember that not every VM needs to be running at a time. If you're practicing your SQL queries, maybe your Chef server doesn't need to be up, for example.

Yeah, I've got an i5-6500k (kinda wish I'd gone for the i7 now, but meh, I don't need it) with 16GB of RAM at home and I was just giving them each 2-4GB of RAM, which was definitely overkill, but caused no problems. Once I have the need for more than two VMs running at a time I'll probably drop it down.

Also before I went to bed I successfully promoted my 2016 VM to be a DC, got DNS going, got my W10 client looking at it for DNS and go it to resolve the server via hostname. Had it domain-joined before I had to sleep. Felt pretty good.

I'm technically supposed to be studying for CCNA Security but that's all book and video learning right now, and this is more fun.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 16:59

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 11, 2024 23:36

deedee megadoodoo: Sep 28, 2000; Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one to Flavortown, and that has made all the difference.

If you get an AWS account you can have all the VMs and simultaneously teach yourself another valuable skill.

# ? Aug 24, 2017 17:15

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Working in IT 3.0: xp_cmdshell

«‹›2915 »